


One Last Time

by backinthebox



Series: Syncopated [2]
Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, One-sided Chloe Beale/Beca Mitchell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 22:37:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6726232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/backinthebox/pseuds/backinthebox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aubrey always said that she wouldn’t have made it through those four years without Chloe, but Aubrey never seemed to understand that Chloe felt the exact same way about the blonde.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Last Time

When she thought about it sometimes, Chloe can’t imagine having gone through Barden University without Aubrey.

Sure, she’d had friends. Her grades had always been decent (when she wasn’t failing Russian Lit, but that’s another story). She dated, and went to parties, and got drunk and opted to stay in bed instead of attending class, and had all the different kinds of experience one could get in college (except for sleeping with a professor. She’d somehow managed to bypass that cliché).

Aubrey always said that she wouldn’t have made it through those four years without Chloe, but Aubrey never seemed to understand that Chloe felt the exact same way about the blonde.

Yes, Aubrey had been the one who needed someone beside her, someone to hold her hair back during times of high anxiety, someone to keep her grounded and at the same time remind her to relax and have fun. But Chloe had needed someone who was both an idealist and a cynic, someone who was heavily rooted to reality but still aimed for the stars.

Actually, Aubrey was the one who kept track of Chloe’s classes, who checked which professors were strict about attendance, those who were more focused on exams or submissions, who made sure that Chloe had enough freedom to breeze through her classes but anchored Chloe down to study or write her reports to ensure decent grades. Aubrey was the one who stayed relatively sober when they went out to parties (although this was mostly due to Aubrey’s southern constitution than a willingness to drink less), because Chloe was an affectionate drunk who flirted with everybody and everything when inebriated. Aubrey was the one who insisted on auditioning for the Barden Bellas, and who made sure Chloe stayed, even when Spawn of Satan Alice had been named captain, making their lives a living hell.

Through the highs and lows of college – her highs and lows in Barden – Chloe had Aubrey there with her. Aubrey, stuck-up, tightly-wound, stick-in-the-mud, killjoy Aubrey Posen had been there to ensure Chloe got the most out of college. And in exchange Chloe learned that Aubrey could drink more than the average college boy and only slightly be affected, and together they became part of a group that made collegiate a cappella history.

She had watched Aubrey struggle with collegiate dating, which was so unlike her high school upbringing where high school sweethearts were the norm, watched her fall in love and get her heart broken, to date romantic dead ends masquerading as preppy college boys, only to fall in love again, with the Girl Least Likely. 

Chloe knows her Barden University experience would have been different without Aubrey. (For one, she was sure the drama could have been kept to a minimum.)

And facing an entire semester without Aubrey come Fall, even if surrounded by the familiar faces of the rest of the Bellas, Chloe knew life in Barden would be different. In the fall, it would be the first time in her entire time in Barden that she not be sharing a living space with Aubrey. Aubrey would not be there to make sure she attended class, submitted her homework, or studied for class.

Chloe would need to start figuring out where Aubrey got the coffee and pastries she always brought Chloe when she got home from her morning run.

If a date went badly, she wasn’t sure which of the Bellas would be scary enough to terrify her date into never calling her again – most of them were freshmen, and Denise was only an incoming junior.

Of course, making friends and meeting new people would probably be that much easier without Aubrey’s judgmental presence around her, but after four years, could you really blame a girl if she felt just a small amount of Stockholm Syndrome when it came to her best friend?

It was in this weird state of melancholy, thinking of a life in Barden that wouldn’t include Aubrey, that made Chloe risk bodily harm and psychological scarring by sneaking into Aubrey’s bedroom to wake the blonde on her graduation day.

Chloe, who had no sense of personal boundaries whatsoever, had found it endlessly amusing that her uptight roommate and best friend had ended up with a girlfriend who also saw no problem in walking around naked, so the expectation that Stacie would most likely not be wearing clothes was a given. But Aubrey?

Mercifully, Aubrey was pressed tightly against Stacie’s back – of course Aubrey would want to be the big spoon, Chloe thought – and nothing was on show, even with the blankets only covering them from the waist down. She nudged Aubrey. “Bree.” 

Aubrey sleepily swat her hand away.

“Aubrey.”

Stacie’s hand lifted, and reached up to touch Aubrey’s hair behind her. “Babe. Chloe’s here.”

“Chloe, I swear to God.” Aubrey grumbled, tightening her hold on Stacie even as she glared over her shoulder. “What?”

Chloe smiled. “Let’s go on a picnic.”

Aubrey groaned. “Right now?”

“Right now.”

Aubrey sighed, and after a moment, nodded. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”

Chloe grinned, and left the room.

Stacie frowned when she felt Aubrey leave the bed, and turned to see the blonde getting dressed. “A picnic?”

Aubrey nodded, wordlessly throwing on pieces of clothing that were decidedly more casual than her usual more put-together looks. Shirts and jeans were among the last items left unpacked, save for her graduation outfit and the clothes she would wear on the drive to her parents’ home.

Stacie glanced out the window, at the darkness outside, and turned back to Aubrey, a little bewildered. “A picnic?”

Aubrey smiled, grabbing a light jacket and bending down to kiss the brunette on the lips. “It’s not a picnic.”

“Then what—”

“It’s just a thing we do. Go back to sleep, Stacie. I’ll explain when we get back.” She brushed her hair quickly. “Breakfast?” 

“Coffee.” Stacie answered, snuggling back into her pillow, before she paused and turned to glance over her shoulder at Aubrey. “And other stuff.”

Aubrey nodded and, grabbing her keys, left the room. She descended the steps of the stairwell to join Chloe in the living room, and wordlessly, they both left the apartment, got into Aubrey’s car, and Aubrey started to drive.

“Picnic” was their code word for when one or both of them wanted to get out of Barden but didn’t want to put it into words. Usually it meant getting into Aubrey’s car and just driving, finding a road stop diner until they felt ready to face reality again. Aubrey can’t pinpoint when it had started – chances are she had been extremely stressed and Chloe had shoved her into the car – but for four years it had been their tradition. And, maybe fittingly, it was one of the last things Aubrey would do before she graduated Barden.

It was not uncommon for Chloe to decide to have a picnic in the middle of the night, or as was the case at the moment, four AM.

This time, they took one of their favored routes, a road that led to a truck stop that served a pecan pie that they agreed had to be one of the best in the world.

“You could have brought Stacie.” Chloe said softly, glancing over at the blonde.

“I know.” Aubrey replied simply. And she did know. Any other time, she would have suggested bringing her girlfriend along, but this felt important, and possibly being the last picnic she and Chloe would have while being Barden students, it felt like something just for the two of them.

Chloe laughed softly. “Considering how much I wanted Beca and how determined you were not to date anyone at the start of the school year, who would’ve thunk you’d be the one with a girlfriend to end the year?”

Aubrey spared her a quick glance. “You can just tell Beca.”

Chloe shook her head. “The fact that she fought to sing that song to him at the finals tells me I shouldn’t.”

Aubrey turned back to the road, because she knew Chloe had a point. Songs meant something to people like them, probably even more to Beca, and she had chosen that song, and chosen the finals, for a reason.

“You hate Bruno Mars.” Chloe noted, a little while later.

“I don’t hate Bruno Mars.” Hate would imply she had listened to his songs enough to have formed an opinion, which she avoided as much as she was able.

“But you hate that song.”

“So?”

Chloe smiled, because she didn’t even need to specify which Bruno Mars song was in question. “Was I singing Just the Way You Are to your girlfriend?”

“She wasn’t my girlfriend then.”

“That’s not really an answer.”

“It’s the one you’re getting.”

Chloe pouted, but relented. “Are you ready for Boston?”

“No.”

Chloe glanced at her, puzzled at the readiness of that response. “No?”

Aubrey gave her a brief glance, before turning back to the road. “If I could take you and Stacie with me, I’d be ready.”

Chloe smiled, and settled back in her seat, watching the Georgia scenery pass by. “I’ll miss you too, Bree.”

**Author's Note:**

> Technically, this should be part of Inter Alia, as it was from the prompt "Picnic".


End file.
